Thoughts on the Demo plus feedback on some things

[Diego]

Just wanted to write my 2 cents on the demo, I really liked it, of course a ton of it is still in early development, but the atmosphere and worlds are really interesting and immersive, I love the movement, parrying FEELS SO GOOD, the Bossfight present at the moment is also really cool, and I love the sense of wonder and exploration.

This said I took notes for feedback, a lot of these are very subjective so take these with a grain of salt, but here it goes:

-I'd love an infinite slide, even as an upgrade, spamming the dodge button is kinda tedious when traveling in the otherworld, that's the main reason, but I could see it breaking the combat so I'd revert it to a limited slide when engaging an enemy;

-Have a separate dodge and slide button, or make the dodge tap and holding go directly into a slide, this is a VERY small issue that I also had with Sekiro, it kinda makes platforming in small areas clunky as you could fall down with no way to get back up;

-I assume this is just something that will improve with development but better hit feedback both from you and enemies is needed (particles, sfx, stuff like that to make everything more impactful);

-A better hud is also something I expect to get better as the game develops but it needs mentioning;

-The air dodge and the jump overlap very often, I'd just put the double jump on pressing the jump button again in the air, but that would overlap with the glide right? Yes, that's why it should be activated by holding the jump button in the air;

-Have a ledge grab, kind of like the Rayman 2/3 one, where it's just smooth and seamless;

-Have the glide speed be faster, because as it is it really serves no purpose, and have it control like normal movement, so that also means no innate forward momentum;

-I also noticed the jump is kinda buggy and even on flat terrain sometimes it just doesn't work;

-The red sword has considerable end lag on almost all its combos (every charged attack, end of the 3 hit normal combo, transition from red sword to grey sword and others), while you can cancel it with a dodge, which is very smart, I'd love if every attack transitioned into each other seamlessly, especially since the other sword doesn't have those issues;

-Have a camera distance option;

-It would be cool to be able to slide jump even if you slide off a platform, so you still have the chance to get back up if you mess up platforming;

-I think the biggest gripe I have with this demo are the unblockable attacks, in a game where you can parry nukes, giant swords and judgment cuts it feels kind out of place? If anything I would make unblockables all coded to one color as to improve readability, at the moment some are white and some are red, but then some red attacks like the judgment cut are parryable, so it's just hard to discern, I think a system like Sekiro where a sign appears on top of the enemy's head to signal an unparryable would go a long way to improve player experience, this is a very subjective point but I really wanted to hammer it in;

-Gap closer attacks;

-The drone bullets feel kinda useless since enemies can deflect projectiles or straight up are immune to them;

-Fully remappable controls are a must;

-A world map a la Hollow Knight/Elden Ring would be great, doesn't tell you where to go but you can still place markers and waypoints to tell your future self "hey, you should check this out later";

-Please zoom out the camera on big bosses;

-Do not have respawning enemies near resting sites, this is what Dark Souls 2 did a few times, and while I still do love that game, it's just kinda irritating;

-MAYBE a teleport between rest sites, this is something I can live without personally, but it would be nice QoL;

Again, a lot of these might seem very subjective, and for the most part they are, just wanted to suggest some QoL and a few things to make gameplay more seamless and fluid, I'm by no means a Game Developer, so I might be saying some stupid stuff haha, but in general I think this demo is a great starting point and I will be following the development of this game very closely, good luck Pyrolith, this game is surely gonna be something special.